IBKR will attempt to issue a warning message to accounts approaching a maintenance margin deficiency (and therefore potential forced liquidation of positions). This message is generated when the Equity With Loan Value is less than or equal to the Maintenance Margin Requirement * 110%. The warning message reads as follows:
ALERT: Your account, while currently margin compliant, maintains qualifying equity (i.e., Equity with Loan Value) at a level only 10% above that which is required.
Note that this communication is sent to both margin and cash type accounts and, while cash accounts are not allowed to submit orders which would result in a margin loan, there are instances where the account requires liquidation to satisfy or avoid a loan (e.g., stock delivery from an option exercise, unfavorable futures variation, monthly activity fee). To minimize the chance of any forced liquidation to satisfy a debit, cash type accounts will receive this communication if the cash balance falls below 10% of total equity.
Accordingly, the recipient of this warning message may wish to maintain a cash balance in an amount sufficient to cover any potential charges to the account and to avoid a forced liquidation. For more information, please visit the IBKR Knowledge Base.